Mass Effect 2 (X360)

Mass Effect 2 is a wonderful game. It is hard for me to say “If you like (x kind of game) you’ll love Mass Effect 2,” because as many other reviews have pointed out, Mass Effect 2 spans several genres so effortlessly that it is very hard to pin down. There’s something here for people that like shooters, people that are hardcore fans of RPGs, and people that like sci-fi space operas. There’s even stuff here for people that like dating sims.

I guess I could say that if you hate great writing, endearing characters, excellent dialogue, immersive plot, extremely thoughtful progression, great music, superb voice acting, a super slick UI, or terrific graphics, you won’t like Mass Effect 2. If you aren’t that brand of masochist, there’s plenty inside that bears investigation.

Writing
Without spoiling anything: The plot in ME2 picks up almost immediately where the original left off, and immediately forces you into some very surprising twists. I managed to know almost nothing about the game other than that your decisions and actions from the first game would affect the second, and I’m glad I did, because at several points along the first 25 percent or so of the game, I encountered plot developments that were both strongly compelling and very enjoyable.

The overwhelming feeling you get while playing ME2 is that the plot’s advancement from the first volume – and indeed the whole universe of the story itself – was carefully and lovingly crafted. These days it is common enough to play a video game that is fun to play and advances the art form in some way while dragging along the barest of plot ideas that were pinned to it out of necessity; other times, a game will try to tell you a story that had big ideas about what it could be that ultimately ends up crumbling under a lack of narrative skill or imagination (often at critical narrative junctures) from the writing crew.

I’ve seen plenty of big budget films with writing that is an absolute shit show compared to what you find here. ME2 suffers from none of the above, and if I had to pick a strongest point for the game, the writing would win out every time.

Graphics
Graphics in video games bear the same weight that the combined departments of cinematography, costuming, production design, directing, and editing do for film. Usually discussions about graphics in video games are boiled down to the very technical, centering on frame rates or clip or resolution, and this is all fine and good and enough when you’re producing something ostensibly photorealistic, like in Modern Warfare 2, or something hyper-imaginative, cartoony and surreal like Bayonetta. With science fiction and space opera material, the design and creative aspects of the graphic content take on equal importance to technical performance.

I think it is for this reason that The Chronicles of Riddick, which continued the rich and stylized environments of the film Pitch Black, was lauded so heavily for the graphics therein. Riddick took the sci-fi requirements and delivered them wrapped in normal mapping, what was then a new kind of graphical rendering that smoothed and buffed the environments and minimized processor demands, resulting in a super smooth action game experience.

ME2 doesn’t beat your eyes into submission with a fancy new souped-up graphical engine, and it doesn’t go for hyper-realism by any stretch of the imagination, but the content as it is presented is believable and a pleasure to look at. The designs of the various kinds of spaceships involved are both classic enough to root you firmly in space opera territory (enemy ships of terrifyingly alien design, totally convincing planet-side shuttles that look like nothing you’ve ever seen before) and unique and creative enough to make you think that your ship looks really cool.

The character design is broad and deep, and done well enough that you believe the characters are saying the words that come out of their mouths. The gameplay looks and feels very comfortable very early on, which is an achievement of no small regard, considering how different it is from the same undertakings in the original Mass Effect. For example: I finished a playthrough of Mass Effect at about 11:00 PM and was playing ME2 shortly after midnight, and I took to the new control systems and UI with ease.

Everything Else
The music is rad. I’m a film scoring nerd, and this music was so well done – somehow reminding me both of the western scores of Ennio Morricone and the 80′s sci-fi scores of Vangelis and Jan Hammer – that I bought the soundtrack, both for the original and the sequel.

I like the transition from narrative to end game, but some critics have complained that the new mission system and compelled story points make it less sand-boxy and more on rails than the original. I think that this is true, but I don’t think it hinders the game in anyway from doing what it intends to do.

In regards to replay value: I’m already on my second replay, and I’ve recently started another replay of Mass Effect, after my first run through ME2. I barely ever finish a game all the way through. If I find it this compelling, imagine how it must be for someone who regularly finished a game multiple times anyways?

Score

Because everything is great, Mass Effect 2 gets a 5 out of 5.

It also gets a bonus Normandy: